/ / / \ \ (' \ . \\ . . ." Õ\;" :::.:: ,; ) \ / "-., L' 42 / . , t\ ;" }, ; & A ' '.. i 1<< ., " ::.\ i{ $J J ....... ';:":::::::. .;.";': . I. '\ WYn _n "::-":"= .:..:.... '::',?\ j';.::i:' ::":'Y ' nf ....... .. ".' . ,:-::... .,, <JIII#Øti> '" ._ ', ;&; rþ1 evnc1 d. I e s / _i_ d -aD .1 fumf -ttf F x tJt, lead Af cf!ø ,16. f'5 OhJ tPt ./5;95 : .::.. ,:;..::..:.:::.:;::::' li t ' :.::.:: f' "f'r , : . , : :? , , :' t , . .....;.;. ,'k,: :: 689#t d5fLT ular lounge with a high ceiling and French windows. The Squadron Leader took me to the centre of the lounge and pointed upward to a big scrawl of names pencilled on the ceiling, at least ten feet heyond my reach. Among them were the names of the American officers who had come back from the July 4th raid. There were also those of at least two who hadn't. "The other fellows put those up," the Squadron Leader said. After each American's name was that of his state. "When a man comes back f h . fi " h " ., rom IS rst op -t at s operatIon, you know-" the Squadron Leader said, "we always have a beano, and when everybody's good and tight we make the ne"Vv hand write his name on the ceiling. 'Ve drag over that long ta- ble, where the magazines are, and we pile some more magazines on top, and then we put a chair on top of them and make him climb up and sign. The night after the Americans came hack "Vvas the most violent beano I've ever seen in me life. They were a good lot, those. They've gone back to one of their own fields now, and the two crews stay- ing here now have come on since." A BOSTON crew consists of four men -pilot, navigator-bombardier, and two gunners. In the American ser- vice the first two are always officers and the gunners are noncoms. In the R.A.F. gunners sometimes are commissioned, and pilots and navigators sometimes aren't. The Squadron Leader told me that one American pilot at the station was a major commanding an A-20 squad- ron. There were four other American officers under him at the field. I had already noted, while I talked to the Squadron Leader, that there were three or four American officers in the big room. Their brown leather windbreak- ers and khaki trousers looked almost vivid among all the R.A.F. slate blue '--' that surrounded them. The Squadron Leader took me over to the American major, who was scrunched in a corner of a leather sofa trying to get interested in a copy of Punch. After we had been introduced, the Major, who was evi- dently only in his late twenties, invited me up to his room while he shaved; he had a date in a nearby small town after dinner, he explained. "I have got a couple of things that I am mad about," h . d " I . d h " e saI. am Dot In a goo umor. We went to his room, which resembled a room in a plain, modern co un try hotel, and he said, "The first thing I am mad about is I just got over the yellow jaun- dice. A lot of the fellows had yellow jaundice, and the doctors here think it is